SvindrsvigOur great friend and mentor, Gote Folk Jarnefolk ( Help! Will some lovely blogger tell me how to install umlauts and accents on Blogger?) keeps his workshop in the charming Svindersvik boat yard outside of Stockholm. Every visit to Gote (insert dots over the o!), Rhonda and I make sure to take a trip up the hill from the harbour to one of our favorite Swedish Rococo buildings, the Svindersvik Manor.
Svindersvik as viewed form the water in the 18th centurySweden's great architect Carl Harleman built Svindersvik in the 1740's for one of Sweden's most successful businessmen, Claes Grill, director of the East India Company. With fine views overlooking the sea, promenades on high cliffs and a large garden, Svindersvik was the perfect weekend retreat for Grill and his family.
A Swedish cartel clock is mounted over the wall canvases painted by
Grill's brothers in Amsterdam were Count Tessin's bankers. In the summer of 1760 the great diplomat and style maker Carl Gustav Tessin brought his family to stay at Svindersvik where he and his wife, Countess Ulla Sparre, hosted a famous saturday afternoon salon.
Svindersvik is small of scale and that is it's great charm. Note the double chandeliersand palace size mirror between the window - all devices to reflect and add light.
Of Svindersvik, Tessin is reported to have remarked, "In one word, Nature's play,
Mr. Grill's purse and taste, and my late lamented friend Baron Harleman's art, have made Svindersvik a joy for humanity that has few equals in charm and arrangement."
We couldn't agree more.
Photos for this post from the Nordiska Museet, Stockholm http://www.nordiskamuseet.se/
